We are pleased to announce that the 2018 Clara Florio Memorial Lecture will be given by Professor Diego Zancani and titled 'Italian Renaissance Food and its Representation in Britain and Italy'. Taking place on May 8th, Tuesday of 3rd Week, Trinity Term 2018, the lecture is open to all and will be followed by a drinks reception.
About the Topic
When Elizabeth I became the Queen of England, Italian was quite fashionable as a language in London. The Queen was said to be able to converse in Italian with the Venetian ambassadors, and she granted a number of gentlemen licenses to travel on the continent. Specialised books on Italian history, language, and diet started to appear. A great promoter of Italian vocabulary, a friend of Shakespeare, and the translator of Montaigne’s works, John Florio (1553–1625) included numerous Italian food terms in his highly successful Italian-English dictionaries, such as lasagne, pappardelle, ravioli, tagliarelli or tagliatelli and many others, including pizza. Common names, perhaps, but not always the same things, however, as we know them.
To learn more, come to the Main Hall of the Taylor Institution next Tuesday from 5 o'clock. Joining the evening will be a delegation from the University of Padua and the Comune, celebrating a unique collaboration and possible twinning of cities and universities.
Diego Zancani is Emeritus Professor of Italian, University of Oxford, Emeritus Fellow, Balliol College. He was a lecturer in Italian at the universities of Reading, Liverpool, and Kent at Canterbury, before being appointed a tutor and Fellow of Balliol College Oxford in 1994. He was a Visiting Professor in various Italian Universities and twice at Harvard University. He has written extensively on Italian Renaissance literature, History of the Language, and History of Food.